Margo Selski

  • BIO

    Twin City-based figurative surrealist painter Margo Selski’s large-scale oil paintings lead her viewers on a little trip down the rabbit hole into an imaginary world that is nuanced, sly, quirky, dark, uncanny and fabular. Rooted in the world of fairy tales, she uses a theatrical troupe: queens, young girls, flora and fauna, predator, and prey. They become the raw materials used to invent and examine the tension between opposites- contemporary and classical, old and new, safe and unsafe and discretion and confession.

    Margo collides old world regal design with 21st century concerns with the intention to examine her life through a mirror at a distance. Through excessive accumulation, revisioning and camouflage she freezes the movement of life in a permeable disguise of theatrical fantasy. Her provocative oil and beeswax paintings have been featured in several solo exhibitions] including Plains Art Museum, Hollywood Glass Garage Fine Art Gallery, Richard J Demato Fine Art NY Gallery, the Minneapolis Art Institute International, the University of Minnesota, Illinois Central College, Saint Cloud State University, Augsburg College, Rochester Museum of Arts Center, the Arkell Museum, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Her work has been recognized for its excellence, producing numerous awards and honors and has been collected by various museums including the Plains Art Museum, Tweed Museum, Frederick Weisman Museum, the Contemporary Museum of Art in Colorado, The Clymer Museum of Art, Springfield Museum, Ohio of Art, Wooster Art Museum, Allen County Art Museum and the North Dakota Museum of Art.

    She has been featured in a variety of publications including See Yourself X, Human Futures Expanded by Madeline Schwartzman, Alice Inspiration, by Carolina Amell, Fine Art Connoisseur, The New York Times, American Art Collector, The Advocate, ARTNews, Juxtapoz, Arts and Antiques, The Observer, and The Huffington Post.

Artist Statement

Balance has been a central theme in my work for over two decades. On a narrative level, it reflects the struggle of modern life—a constant pursuit of equilibrium amid the chaos. I find myself navigating a winding path, punctuated by detours, yet framed by enduring boundaries. At the heart of this labyrinth, a blank canvas waits, my empty orchestra, poised to sing.

My work often plays with the echoes of old masterpieces, creating a theatrical stage peopled with an elaborate cast: queens, young mothers, girls, musicians, flora, and fauna. They exist in still, airless spaces, where every character seems to know who to love, who to despise.

I wish they could remain in these poses.

But balance is fleeting. Relationships shift, turn inside out. Queens revert to young girls; girls dissolve into empty eggs; animals transform into musicians. Princesses morph into red hens. Eggs, children, families—all begin to fragment, becoming strange, unrecognizable. Soon, no one knows how to think or feel. My shimmering utopia tilts, becomes unstable.

And yet, there remains a relentless desire for love, certainty, and permanence. So, I pick up the brush once more.

In this pose, it is I who am held.

Little About Margo

What inspires your work?

I am obsessed with fairytales, mythology, family stories, my Southern Gothic upbringing, and discovering my purpose. I invite my audience on a little trip down the rabbit hole into a familiar yet unfamiliar world, where one can explore an imagined world that is nuanced, sly, quirky, dark, uncanny, and fabulous. I want to allow the audience to build new stories, reinvent a moment, discover the current truth, or be amused.

What is something unexpected about you that often surprises people?

In Hollywood in 2010, I collaborated with author, Neil Gaiman on two episodes and with the writers of Doctor Who to enhance the Tardis during the 11th incarnation with Matt Smith. I have been honored to have my work collected by William Duke of Cambridge and the Duchess of Cambridge; Ellen DeGeneres; Lady Gaga; the late Hugh Hefner, and David Thewlis.

What do you consider your most significant achievement as an artist?

In 2018, for the first time, I was published in an art history textbook. This was a pivotal point for me as an artist. It also was significant because at the time I was teaching Western Art History at Central Washington State University.

How has your work evolved over time?

In the late 90’s, during graduate school, I traveled to Greece and studied ancient fresco narratives. Upon returning home, I developed a cast of characters including a Red Hen Woman, Humpty Dumpty, a Wolf Maiden, and various chickens in Victorian ruffs. In 2000, Humpty Dumpty became a woman with very pointed shoes who precariously balanced herself on a box. A Tightrope walker, the twins Flora and Fauna, a Siamese Twin, and a puppeteer joined the troupe. In 2005 after joining a Hollywood Gallery I met a like-minded group of artists and performers and explored the Steampunk movement in literature, music film, art, and design. I created a society of debutantes who planted English gardens under the ocean and sirens who played fantasy pipe organs on the sea. I was interested in colliding 19th-century design with 21st century concerns while examining issues involving technology, communication systems, feminism, colonialism, racism, ecology, and alienation. I became interested in viewing my life and society through a mirror at a distance. In 2013, I became exclusively represented by a New York gallery and that's when the cast of Wonderland intermingled with the natives of Planet Margo. Recently, I’ve been fascinated by Animalia. I am exploring how to use animals as a subject allowing the viewer to think about relationships in a gentler more abstract way. I think it’s easier for people to view an issue between a donkey girl dusting an armchair and an elephant in a daisy dress and pink handbag than it is to view an issue between two people.

Is there a particular medium or subject you're drawn to, and why?

I am an oil painter whose canvas echoes qualities found in old masterpieces. I concentrate on narrative, realism, surrealism, and figurative art. I have a very elaborate cast of characters: queens, young girls, Flora & Fauna, predator & prey, and occasional Victorian debutant. I enjoy losing myself in my work for hours. I enjoy stirring up a desired color and the buttery consistency of oil paint and with a brush laying in repetitive strokes. I lose all sense of time and I am one with the work at hand.

What's the most challenging part of being an artist?

While I love collaborations and commissions I find them always challenging. Currently, I’m working on the movie poster and having too many cooks in a kitchen is a real thing.

Do you have a favorite piece you've created? Why does it stand out?

In Maiden Flight, I imagine this experienced avatar gains confidence while attached to a pulley system and practices flying over a paperboard landscape of St. Paul. Although she, unfortunately, is related to flightless chickens, she continues her training with a sense of purpose. When she is finally prepared, she succeeds in flying over the big city. I’ve hidden the St Paul Robert Street Bridge in the paper board cut-out landscape. The Bridge was designed and built by my ancestors who had an architectural firm in Lowertown.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was raised in Kentucky, but born in Minnesota and I am currently a Twin City-based artist. My paintings balance between discretion and confession, always weighing heavily on the side of discretion. For example, in some of my work, I have discreetly veiled my lower-class, southern Gothic childhood beneath a beautifully, arranged, visual narrative. By using layers of myth and metaphors, I envelop, conceal, or partially conceal the real meaning behind my work.

Who are your artistic influences or mentors?

I often imagine myself having tea in an English parlor with Lewis Carroll, Remedios
Varo, and Emily Post.

What advice would you give to emerging artists?

My advice comes from Doctor Who season five when the Dr says, “There’s something that doesn’t make sense. Let’s go poke it with a stick“. Be brave, poke it.

Margo's Art